Help With My Starter Please

[crusher]

Hi Guys'
Ive had my first attempt at making a yeast starter yesterday & need some advice. It was a whitelabs trappist liquid vial I used. I boiled up some DME & force cooled, sterilised a 2 litre sherry container with bung & airlock, poured in DME ,shook yeast vial & emptied. Shook the **** out of it & waited. That was at 8.00am yesterday. nothing till late lastnight when a bit of activity started below surface, but nothing above. No bubbling in airlock.Checked during night, a tiny white froth on top but not much . This morning bubbling in airlock & fair bit of activity below surface but on top only about 4 mm of froth. Its been kept about 21 deg. Is this going O.K. I just thought I would have more action on top. I let yeast vial come down to 21 deg before pitching. Questions. 1 If it is OK to pitch now should I put the whole 1.8 litre starter in or should I only use half & keep the rest. If so how is the best way? 2 as its 8.00 am Iam suppose to play bowls this morning, can I delay using this yeast starter until tonight, how can I best delay it.
Many thanks
Crusher

 

[siiren]

In my experience, all your procedures and the effect sound fine.
Personally, I would split the starter into about 4 sanitised stubbies (put them in the fridge for next time), and step up the remainder in the flask.
Now that you have activity, it wont take long for the yeast to multiply so the starter should be ready fairly quickly as long as you keep the temperature the same (for the additional wort I mean)
I am not sure what the recommended size starter would be for a high gravity trappist would be, but generally for ales 1 - 1 1/2L is adequate.
Lagers need a larger starter say 2L.
If you don't have much space in your fridge, just split the stater into 1 stubby and pitch the rest. You can just step up the starter next time and split again.
Anyway, just my 2 bobs worth.

 

[johnno]

Hiya crusher,
From my limited experience I beleive the best time to pitch it is when its active and at high krausen with all the foam at the top.
Having said that I started a Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale last wednesday night about 7 pm. I made about 1 and 1/2 litre up.
I only had a minute amount of a starter as KenEasy provided me with some. I wanted to get it ready for Saturday. It took of really well and hit high krausen around Friday morning.
By Saturday morning it had slowed right down and I hadnt even brewed yet.
I went ahead and made the brew, had a smell and a taste to make sure there was no infection and pitched yeast about 7 last night. By this stage there was no activity at all. I topped up the remaining 10 litres with the garden hose. I kept about 100 ml and fridged that in a small PET bottle for use next time.
By 10 it had started working and by this morning its been going full on.
In my limited brewing experience I have found yeast to be very hardy stuff. An APA i am drinking at the moment was brewed with a Wyeast 1056 that i had started up then had to leave in the fridge for a few weeks.
I just took it out of the fridge and brought it back to room temp and pitched it. It worked fine. I just taste and smell to make sure there is no infection and always have a Saf dry yeast as a standby.
My 2 cents.

cheers

 

[crusher]

Thanks guys, will now pitch & fingers crossed.
Crusher.